The Ammophilae 



with envy; she knows what man hardly ever 

 knows; she knows her victim's complex ner- 

 vous system and reserves her successive 

 dagger-thrusts for the successive ganglia of 

 her caterpillar. I said, she knows; what I 

 should say is, she behaves as though she 

 knew. Her act is simple inspiration. Ani- 

 mals obey their compelling instinct, without 

 realizing what they do. But whence comes 

 that sublime inspiration? Can theories of 

 atavism, of natural selection, of the strug- 

 gle for life interpret it reasonably? To me 

 and my friend, this was and remained one 

 of the most eloquent revelations of the un- 

 utterable logic that rules the world and 

 guides the ignorant by the laws of its in- 

 spiration. Stirred to our innermost being by 

 this flash of truth, both of us felt tears of 

 undefinable emotion spring to our eyes. 



271 



